Govt team to visit Delhi to negotiate rice import soon

---

Joint forces and the local administration at Keraniganj beside the capital city started selling rice at Tk 22 per kg Saturday to the local consumers, which was imported earlier for the Food for Work programme. — FocusBangla photo

Naim-Ul-Karim
A government delegation will visit New Delhi later this week to negotiate import of 0.5 million tonnes of rice from India.
"The authorities concerned of the Indian government informed us about sending a delegation" Mohammad Ayub Mian, secretary of the Ministry of Food and Disaster Management (MFDM), told the FE Saturday.
He said Bangladesh delegation is expected to leave the country for New Delhi on January 10 or 11.
When asked, Mian said the delegation will discuss prices of rice and freight charge, deadline of import and other related issues.
Sources said the delegation might request the Indian side to lower price of rice that was increased to $500 from $425 recently.
They said a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) might be signed between the government agencies of Bangladesh and India if both the sides reach a consensus on the import.
However, Mian said steps are underway to import rice from Thailand, Myanmar and Vietnam.
He said letters of credit (L/Cs) have already been opened for import of 55,000 tonnes of rice from Myanmar and Vietnam.
Mian said tender, invited for import of rice from Thailand, will be opened on January 16.
When asked about the rise of prices of coarse flour (Ata) in the city market over the last one week due to price hike of rice, Mian said: "W'll enquire into the matter and see if it is compatible with the international market price."
Ruling out any shortage in supply of wheat, Mian said in the first six month of the current fiscal about 1.0 million tonnes of wheat were imported. Nearly 1.7 million tonnes of wheat were import in whole of fiscal 2006-07.